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Athanasios Kotsiaros Athens 2007 INSTITUTE OF EUROPEAN INTEGRATION AND POLICY (I.E.I.P.) DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION NATIONAL AND KAPODISTRIAN UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS RESEARCH UNIT TURKEY ATHANASIOS KOTSIAROS Turkish National Elections 2007: Choosing between democracy and authoritarianism RUT-WP 03/07 ATHENS 2007 “Turkish National Elections 2007: Choosing between democracy and authoritarianism” by A. Kotsiaros1 “Turkish democracy will emerge strengthened from these elections” R.T. Erdo÷an The Turkish National Election results of the 22nd July 2007 indisputably reveal the AKP dominance in the political scene.2 The Justice and Development Party received a strong vote of confidence gathering 46.7% of the total votes and sharply increasing its share by 12.4% comparing to the 2002 parliamentary elections. The electoral success was accomplished despite opposition efforts to portray the Islamist- rooted Party as a Trojan horse which undermines Turkey's secular traditions and promotes a hidden Islamic agenda. The threats and tricks of the military failed. The AKP was recognized as the most reliable political force to continue the modernization and the democratization process in the country. The real fight in the July elections was between a changing society that claims its rights and a dominant state which traditionally insists on defying the framework in which the society operates. For the first time in the Turkish political history the “deep state” seems to be isolated. This is also the first time in 52 years that a party in power has increased its votes for a second term.3 As the election results show, a modernizing society overthrew the power the state, democracy won over authoritarianism. Election results and the distribution of the votes: In the National Elections of the 22nd July 2007 participated fourteen political parties. 7394 candidates ran for office, of which 699 were independents. According to the Supreme Election Board (Yüksek Seçim Kurulu BaúkanlÕ÷Õ - YSK), 42,533,041 1 A. Kotsiaros is a PhD candidate in the University of Athens and Research Fellow in the Institute of European Integration and Policy, University of Athens. 2 Turkish Elections were called earlier because of the failure of the Parliament to elect Abdulah Gül as President of the Republic. Erdo÷an, by calling earlier elections, intended to defuse a showdown with the military-backed, secular establishment, which contended that the fundamental values of the state were at risk by Erdo÷an and his allies. The issue came along in April, when the AKP tried to install FM A.Gül as President, prompting a threat by the military to intervene. Millions of Turks engaged in mass street demonstrations against the AKP, as opposition parties blocked the Parliamentary vote for President, forcing Erdo÷an to call earlier elections. The demonstrations were organised by the Atatürk Thought Association (ADD). 3 The statement was made by Erdo÷an on the night of the 22nd July in front of thousands of jubilant supporters outside his party's plush new headquarters. (See: “En Turquie, la victoire électorale de l’AKP renforce M.Erdogan”, Le Monde, 23.07.2007) 1 voters were registered for the elections. The turnout was more than 80 percent and the voting was largely peaceful.4 The Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi - AKP) gathered 46.7% of the vote and became the dominant party in Parliament winning 341 seats. Two other, secularist, parties made it into Parliament: the Nationalist Republican People's Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi - CHP) with 112 seats and the far-right National Movement Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi - MHP) with 71.5 Politicians supported by a Kurdish party that seeks more rights for the ethnic minority returned to Turkey's Parliament for the first time in more than a decade. The independents, supported by the Democratic Society Party (Demokratik Toplum Partisi – DTP) won 26 seats in the 550-seat Parliament. The results of the election procedure and the distribution of the seats in the National Parliament are depicted in the diagrams below6: DIAGRAM 1: DIAGRAM 2: 4 The total votes cast were 35,983,801 of which 35,017,315 were valid. 5 After the death of a MHP deputy right after the elections the seats of the Party are 70. 6 For the abbreviations of the Parties, see Table 1 in the Annex. 2 DIAGRAM 3: Source: http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/secimsonuc, http://www.milliyet.com.tr/secim2007 The Justice and Development Party (AKP) won the majority of the votes in 76 of the 85 electoral regions. The Kemalist party (CHP) won the electoral regions of the Eastern Thrace, Izmir, Mu÷la in the Aegean Region, where the base of its supporters are traditionally located. The Nationalists (MHP) won the majority in the Içel and Mersin regions. In the Southeast Turkey, the independent candidates, supported by the Kurdish party, won the Hakkari, Muú, Bingöl, I÷dir, Diyarbakir and Tunceli regions.7 AKP dominated in the rest of the country. The following diagram (4) presents the distribution of the votes in the electoral regions: DIAGRAM 4: 7 For a more detailed presentation of the results in the electoral regions see: TÜRKøYE GENELø SEÇøM SONUÇLARI, http://secim2007.hurriyet.com.tr and http://www.milliyet.com.tr/secim2007 3 Explaining the results: the dominance of the AKP and the failure of the opposition parties Turkish voters had to choose between the continuity of the reforms process generated by the Erdo÷an government and the authoritarian rule of the Kemalists and the military. The high percentage that AKP gathered reveals that the Turkish public opted for democracy and clearly showed its opposition against the extensive involvement of the armed forces in the political life. Before the July elections, the Republican People’s Party and the Nationalist Movement Party have both adopted nationalist and neo-nationalist and pro-statist discourses. The CHP created deep disappointment and the election results are believed to be a failure of D. Baykal and his party.8 The CHP gathered only 21 percent of the vote and consequently secured 110 seats in the Parliament. The election outcome reveals that ‘secular – anti-secular debate’ was not well received by the public. The CHP’s cooperation with the Democratic Left Party (DSP) was of no use either. Despite this, 13 DSP candidates who participated in the elections under the umbrella of the CHP were successful in winning a seat in the new Parliament. Baykal has not realized that the politics of fear did not manage to convince the electoral body for an existing threat. Even more, his alliance with the military and the justice portrayed its party politics as being an extension of the generals undermining democratic order.9 In addition, the CHP is not a mass party. It’s more of a doctrine party. The reason the CHP could not get votes from the eastern provinces of the country is that its political stance and its definitions of what the nation is don’t appeal to the people of the region. The amount of votes a party gets doesn’t determine whether it is a mass party or not. Mass parties are those that intent to increase the number of believers in their cause rather than the number of voters. In this context, the CHP and the MHP are doctrine parties. On the other hand, the MHP, before elections, targeted getting 20 percent of the ballot due to rising nationalism. It appears though that MHP managed to steal votes mainly from traditional CHP voters, rather than the AKP, and also from the Motherland Party (ANAVATAN) and the Democrat Party (DP).10 The far-right nationalist party generally appeals to fiercely conservative Turks who want a purely Turkish society, free of ethnic minorities. It gained strength in recent months as 8 See: “Les électeurs kemalistes amers et inquits”, Le Monde, 23.07.2007 9 See: “AK Party sole centre party in elections”, News Analysis, Zaman, 21.07.2007 10 See: Bozkurt G., “AKP’s triumph jolts left and right”, Turkish Daily News, 22.07.2007 4 militant Kurdish separatists, the principal enemy stepped up killings of Turkish soldiers in the country's southeast. The recent surge in foreign investment into Turkey's growing economy is also cause for alarm among its supporters.11 MHP leader Devlet Bahceli is expected to represent the nationalist structure in Parliament as an opposition Party and seriously challenge the AKP. Both the CHP and the MHP were criticized of lacking a concise political program. The Democratic Party appears to be the other disappointed party of the general elections. The party’s leader, Mehmet Agar, announced his resignation well before 20 percent of the ballot boxes were counted. The election outcome also unveiled that the public punished the DP after their abortive plans to join plans with ANAVATAN ahead of the polls.12 For once more, the center-right will not be represented in the TTBM, a development that clears out the way for the independent candidate Mesut Yilmaz to stand out as the leader of the center right. At the same time, in the East and Southeast Turkey, the two parties have failed to find support from all groups. In these regions the race was rather between the AKP and the independent candidates, supported by the Democratic Society Party (DTP). For many Kurdish nationalists, the CHP was as dangerous as the MHP, even though it harboured them in the past. The election swept at least 23 Kurdish candidates into Parliament, a significant victory for Turkey's Kurds, who make up nearly a fifth of the population. They have not been represented on a national level in more than a decade, since a deputy was ejected from Parliament for insisting on speaking Kurdish during a swearing-in ceremony.
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